30.5.12

I wanna...

"Let me take off all your clothes,
Disconnect the phone so nobody knows..."

This is a salacious tale of lust and (mild) perversion.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way…

I had one of the most fabulous ‘not a date’ dates of my adult life a couple of weeks ago, and I can’t talk about it.  I want to talk about it, I’m itching to give you all the gory details, but because it’s not only my story to tell, I can’t, or is it won’t?  You have to give me credit here, I’m finally learning not to tempt fate.  Folks, this is one gift horse I will not be looking in the mouth.  That said, I’m bloody frustrated with this situation.  Just this once I’d love to talk about time spent with a man that didn’t end with me pissed off or disappointed.  But noooo… this was ‘not a date’, and thus cannot be treated as such.  It was just one of those nights when the planets were aligned and the gods were smiling down on me saying, “Throw her a bone(r), she looks like she could use a good shag, don’t you think?”

In case that intro didn’t scare you off and you’re sitting there thinking that I’m about to start an eloquent rant about dating and shit, you might want to take a closer look at today’s track, the make-out and/or get laid anthem of the first half of the 90’s, at least for those of us who had just finished coming into our hormones aided, no doubt, by the landing of MTV on our shores, courtesy of KTN.  Slight detour, if you remember watching this video and blushing furiously (as much as us black folk can…) because your mother just walked into the room, know that your ass is as geriatric as mine.  For some reason, my mother would always appear just as the chorus was starting, very creepy!  And the subsequent embarrassment of having to explain what they were saying, and why, and why ‘did I like things like that?’ (said with a disgusted sneer) practically scarred me for life.  To this day, whenever something even remotely sexual comes on screen, I look over my shoulder, just in case…   Further detour, didn’t that lead singer dude have the most delicious looking hair?  He looked like a wella ad, all bouffant and shit, he was so dreamy.  Last detour, I googled in search of the video and, as always, found out shit I didn’t need to know.  Turns out, half the idiots on the internet think the song is crap (they just don’t get it, bloody philistines…), and the other half felt the need to tell me that CMB sampled Betty Wright (look her up, its worth it), among others, and by sampled I mean borrowed somewhat heavily, allegedly.  Hell, at one point I was half expecting to find a random connection to Lady bloody Gaga, just to spite me.  Damn this internet! Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?     

Moving on swiftly…

Now, contrary to my tales of the local and such like nonsense, I’m not much of a people person, which is to say I’m somewhat anti-social.  I don’t like crowds, half the time I don’t even like people (present company excluded, of course).  Most of my weekends are spent in quiet solitude, the only exceptions being my family every so often, and the fellas derailing me on a random Saturday night.  But the thing about living alone, and being a loner, is this: sometimes, every once in a while, you long for company, you crave real live interaction, as opposed to talking to faceless buggers like you (whom I am very fond of, she said, not wanting to scare off her lovely audience of fifteen or so…).  Sometimes, you simply yearn for another person’s presence, their touch.  This isn’t about pining for a certain someone, it’s about pining for a certain something.  Being single, sometimes you miss being in a relationship.  Having someone to talk to when you’ve had a bad day, to share a cognac with when you’ve had a bloody good day.  Someone to share a meal with once in a while when you’re tired of cooking for one and eating in front of the TV.  Someone to make you a cuppa (plus a biscuit) at ten, or get you a blanket to cover your feet on a cold night.  Someone to snuggle up next to, just because you can.  Someone you can undress slowly as you make out on the carpet, because you can’t be bothered to stumble into the bedroom…

I got a call late in the afternoon, he was driving past and wanted to stop by and I was only too happy to see him, I was in need of pleasant company and pointless distraction.  Someone to talk to me for a couple of hours, make me laugh, make me think, force me to unwind and lay my burdens down, if only for a couple of hours.  Someone to talk to about life and love and everything in between.  Someone to sit back with and watch the cars go by, listening to New Jack Swing and reminiscing on an almost forgotten youth.  Someone to share my deepest fears and most petty issues with, because he knows me well enough to distinguish between the two, and he’s comfortable doing the same.  Someone with whom I can have mind-bending conversations about anything and everything under the sun.  Someone who tells me about his life and times, laughing at his little foibles, shrugging off his not so little mistakes, admitting to forgotten passions and revelling in past glories.  Someone who willingly acknowledges his weaknesses, allowing me to acknowledge mine.  Someone who knows what I’m thinking, sometimes before I do, but still waits patiently for me to form the thought and voice it, minutes later.  Someone who looks at me and sees me, and smiles because he’s glad to be there, at that moment, with me, as I am with him.  Someone who knows to top up my glass of wine, his hand lingering on my arm for a moment, before he opens another beer.

Someone who’s craving that touch just as much as I am… 

Someone to kiss me goodbye at the door, or hello, as he shuts the door, still inside.  Someone to nuzzle that spot on my neck, as he slides the shirt off my arms.  Someone to slip his hand up my vest, stroking my back, and then my front.  Someone to push me up against the wall, mouth teasing me as his fingers work their way down, gently opening me up.  Someone to lead me to the bedroom, undressing me slowly as he does, sliding the jeans past my hips, as he eases me down onto the bed to pull them off, one leg at a time.  Someone to strip for me, slowly, his breath quickening as I take him in hand, eager to taste him.  Someone to lift me up only a few minutes later, urgency overtaking him as he pulls me onto his lap, his hands on my hips, his lips on me as I match his rhythm.  Someone to lean back onto the bed as his pleasure overcomes him, pulling me down on top of him.  Someone to laugh with, coming down from the high.  Someone who refuses to let me get up, pulling me close to him, whispering, let’s do it again…

"Girl you make me feel real good
We can do it 'til we both wake up..."

Hello my lovelies.  So what do you say, can you put up with my nonsense for another 6 months?  Come on, let’s do it again…

16.5.12

With your permission...

I had a free day last week (yes, it’s that bad…) and apart from occasionally rolling over to prevent bedsores, I did next to nothing and it was just lovely.  Instead of working, I spent my time trawling through the many Kenyan blogs in search of the magic formula that will transform my visitor stats from the slow heartbeat they are currently (mostly flat with random spikes every two days, from spammers in Russia no less) to something resembling the equalizer pattern of house music (Apparently these days its called trance.  Eh?).  Don’t freak out, I’m not looking to get commercial on your ass with Kiwi ads and what not, I’m simply trying to figure this blogging saga out.  See I’m a bit of a Type A personality, we compete even when there’s no reason to, it’s our OCD kicking in; ‘Must do better!’ is the mantra always running through our subconscious (courtesy of crazy parents no doubt), but I digress.  I’m not looking for fame et al, I just want world domination is all, and I’m still 365,413 off the mark by my count. 

Slight detour, the phrase world domination always reminds me of ‘Pinky and the brain’.  Now those were mice with a brilliant (flawed) plan… 

I was saying, so I’m sitting there reading all these blogs wondering, eh?  Half of the time I had no idea what they were talking about (either too deep or not deep enough), and the rest of the time I was mentally correcting misspelled words and absent punctuation (my bete noir as a French speaking friend would call it, pet peeve to the rest of us…).  And that’s when it finally hit me, I’m one of the older (oldest?) bloggers out here right now.  Turns out, most of the buggers I’ve been reading are but tender younglings, yet to hit their 30’s.  Damn you bastards, damn you!  Ha!  When did I get so old?  In my head, I’m still a 25 year old, fumbling around in the dark trying to get my bearings, and then I read geniuses moaning about turning 21.  21?  Sweet Jesus!  At that age, Tupac is as remote to you as Elvis was to me when I was growing up.   

When did I get so old? 

With this realisation, however, came a calm.  I’ve realised that I don’t have to struggle to be heard in this din, I’ll never be heard, at least not by the masses, because the masses do not want to, or cannot, hear what I have to say.  It’s simply a different market, no?  I remember what it was like to be in my 20’s, I had no time for old folks, no interest in their experiences and their boring tales of ‘when I was a young man…’, I was a brash little thing with only one thing on my mind… you guessed it… world domination, and I wasn’t about to stop and listen to some old geezer tell me otherwise.  Well, the joke’s on me now, isn’t it?  I’m the old geezer, screaming to the world, ‘The end is nigh!’ and being resolutely ignored.  And it’s a bloody relief.  See, the thing they never tell you about getting older is how much easier life gets.  Well, sort of.  You no longer have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, unlike Atlas, you can shrug it off.  And the world doesn’t end.  In fact, it keeps spinning along on its axis, blissfully ignorant of the tectonic shift in your mindset.  It doesn’t give two shits about you and your petty dramas, neither, for that matter, do most of the people in it.  In my 30’s I’ve realised that not only does the world not revolve around me, I actually like it that way, because that means I’m free to do whatever (and whomever?) I like without the paralysing fear of what other people think. 

Don’t get me wrong, its not that I feel nothing for the people around me, I’ve just learnt to focus on the people around me who matter.  The rest?  For as long as I do no harm as I go about my business, I’m good.  I know, it’s a very insular way of thinking, ignoring the rest is tantamount to selfishness, or heartlessness.  ‘Where’s your sense of humanity?’ you wail, offended by my caustic attitude.  ‘Right here,’ I reply calmly, pointing at my chest.  My heart, you idiot, not my boobs, useless deviant bugger…  Thing is, I can’t change the whole world, and I’m done trying to.  These days, I’m only interested in changing this minute little part of the world I inhabit.  If, through my labours, I can make my life, and that of the few people I come into contact with, better, then that’s good enough for me, because I live in the delusional hope that they will do the same, and then those they touch will do the same, and on and on…  Pay it forward, that’s my mantra these days.  Simplistic?  Probably, but perhaps simplicity is what we need more of, no? 

This is not what I sat down to write about, I sat down to write about blogging, this was supposed to be ‘Blogging 301: lessons learned after 6 months of rambling aimlessly.’  But as with all things mental, I took a tangent, and now I have no idea how to get back to where I wanted to be.  And thus we get to the point of this meandering post.  Have you ever had one of those days when everything that could possibly go wrong, does?  That’s the kind of month I’m having, and then some.  Nothing too serious mind you, just that my professional and personal lives seem to have conspired to screw me over, simultaneously.  If it’s not the deluge of work I’m drowning under, like a Nairobi street with blocked storm drains (insert bitchy cat sound here…), then it’s the peculiar men who seem to delight in waltzing in and out of my life, knocking me for six in the process.  When it rains it pours, no?  I’m still kicking though, so I guess I’ll live to see another month, and in the meantime I’ll have to be content with the reassuring knowledge that with time this too shall pass, and it will pass, even if I have to drag it out the door on its shitty little ass. 

That’s my way of apologising, by the way, for my tardiness in posting the last couple of weeks.  I know this isn’t a prison with strict rules and shit, but I have a thing for order, seeing as how I’m such an OCD idiot.  I like a schedule (and a good list too, but that’s a story for another day), and I specifically like to keep a schedule here, because this is pretty much the only thing in my life right now that I can control, the rest of my time being spent acquiescing to irrational demands for my time from my crazy clients, and my mother (bless her, she’s driving me mad this week…).  The last four months I’ve been posting twice a week, every week, without fail (I was late the one time, but I had a good single malt excuse, no?).  Some days its rambling nonsense, some days its rambling nonsense with purpose (yaani, I’ve decided to bang a drum, kinda like today…), but on all days it’s a not too serious, upside-down look at my life, and yours by association.  But this month… bleh…  The cow has refused!  I think the problem is that I had told myself I’d take this month off to recharge and reboot, and then I didn’t, and now I’m feeling like it’s the first week of school in January; you’re excited to be there, but you don’t really feel like doing much of anything. 

Ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission, naomba leave.  I’m taking a couple of weeks off, two weeks to be precise.  I’m not going anywhere, unfortunately, odds are I’ll still be lurking around, making a nuisance of myself in other people’s houses, just, I figure if I’m older then I get to say whatever the fuck I want, no?  Ha!  That felt good…  I’ll be back on Wednesday 30th May, 10:00 pm, GMT +3.  Really.  The post is already scheduled, and it’s muchos filthy, but in a good way.  Or not.

Be good, don’t break anything while I’m away.


POSTSCRIPT
You think maybe you could use this time to read some of the more neglected pieces of brilliance in my archive?  I mean really, you just lenga’d the zebra saga, completely, and it was very educational!  Shame man…

11.5.12

Play like a woman, win like a man.

I know, sounds like a self-help book doesn’t it?  Fear not, I’m too delusional to write anything quite that serious, or helpful for that matter.  Folks, may I present:  THE Kai Nikii? CLUELESS MEN’S HANDBOOK FOR GETTING A WOMAN.  ANY WOMAN.  REALLY. 

Catchy title, no?  No?  Moving on swiftly… 

Women.  We vex you don’t we?  We say one thing and then turn around and do the exact opposite, and then we give you hell when you ask us why.  I know, its bloody frustrating, but what can you do, right?  Gentlemen, because I am a kind and generous person, and because it’s a sunny Friday morning and I’m in a good mood, I’m going to give you a few tips about the games women play, and how to beat them at it, and to make it easier to comprehend, I’m going to make like the PM and go all football metaphor on your ass(es).  Forgive me for taking the name of the beautiful game in vain, but needs must and such like nonsense.

Now before you step out onto the pitch you might want to get yourselves in shape, a couple of sprints, a jog or two, maybe a push up here and a lunging squat there.  The aim is not to firm up your biceps, glutes and others, although that’s a much appreciated bonus given that your rippling muscles leave them drooling when you step out in your sleeveless tunic and ass gripping shorts (remember the kit Cameroon wore to that Afcon in Mali?  Sweet!), you also need to build up your stamina so you can last 90 minutes and more without collapsing like the geriatric England back 4 at the last World Cup (and the one before that, and the one before that…).  Its not KBL festival of darts, is all I’m saying, your ability to drink like a fish and still shoot straight will only get you so far, you have to put in the work if you want results.  Think Stoichkov, not Romario.

1. This game is one of endurance and persistence, if you can’t outwit them (and you probably can’t), then outlast them.  They’ll eventually get tired and lie down.

Assuming that you have trained like there’s no tomorrow and have now qualified to play in a real game, you then get to walk on to the pitch, if you’re lucky in a magnificent cathedral like the Bernabeu, or, as is more likely, a little bowl like City Stadium.  No matter though, the rules of the game are the same; you score, you win.  No, I’m not being blonde, this game is slightly different from football.  In football you play as a team, looking to score the most goals, yes?  Not in this game, here only the bugger who scores, scores.  Teamwork is only useful in as far as it gets you to the goal mouth, then you’re on your own.  If you have visions of being a nondescript sweeper cleaning up at the back for the rest of your life, my friend, you will be alone for a long, long time.  Even Baresi came forward every so often, and scored, no?

2. You have to take a shot, yourself, eventually. 

There you are, you and yours on one side, and a bunch of women on the other.  What?  You thought you were playing each other?  Noooo…  What fun would that be?  You’re playing against a bunch of vicious women, extremely devious and deceptively small, but with one or two defenders who look like they ate their children for breakfast.  These women play like Italians, professional fouls from start to finish, this as they smile sweetly at the ref they bought two weeks ago.  Please note that before the game starts one hand is tied behind your back, and then said hand is loosely tied to your boot for good measure, just in case.  Not to worry though, these ladies won’t be using their hands either, they just got their nails did…

3. The game is stacked against you, adapt or die (alone).

So the game is about to kick off and you notice some commotion on the opposite end.  What’s this, the goal posts are being uprooted?  And now they’re carrying in a new set…  What the hell?  Not to worry, one goal is the same as the other, right?  The ref blows the whistle and you’re off, running down the pitch with fluid well thought out passes, all German like, tap, run, tap, run… in a couple of minutes you’re right outside the box.  The ladies, however, are quite nonplussed, standing on either side of the goal, chatting.  Confused you look to the ref and he waves play on, so you swing in a cross to your star striker, he that always claims to score.  He leaps up and swivels his body, raising his right boot to meet the pin-point Beckam-esque cross.  Thwack!  He bicycle-kicks the ball over his head, flash bastard, and it’s headed into the top right hand corner.  The crowd is hushed watching the trajectory.  The ladies are hushed watching the trajectory.  The team is hushed watching the trajectory.  Then at the last minute, the ladies on the right give the goal posts a little shove to the left and the ball whistles just past the upright.  That’s right gents, the goal posts are on rollers.

4. The goal posts can and will be shifted at any moment, deal with it.  

You run to ref crying foul but he walks away, unmoved.  Play on, he says.  You shrug and get back into position, you figure that with your skills, its only a matter of time before you score, law of averages and all.  The ladies get their goal kick, and their keeper, a voluptuous little thing clad in a skimpy outfit better suited to beach volleyball, promptly kicks the ball right back to you, winking saucily as she does so.  You miss the ball completely as a result of such blatant overtures, at which point their striker, a nippy little thing who bears some resemblance to Marta snaps up the ball and takes off down the wing, making a beeline for your goal.  You start to chase after her, but you quickly get distracted by the sight of her ample ass jiggling in her Sepp Blatter inspired booty shorts as she sprints ahead of you, and before you know it the rest of your team mates are right there beside you, watching her go.  Ah, the beautiful game…  She shoots, but your goalkeeper, the only other person with his eye on the ball makes a fantastic Casillas type save.  So fantastic in fact, that Marta walks up to him and kisses him, a hot, nasty, ‘we are about to get busy’ kiss, grabbing his head in one hand and his ass in the other.  You know the kiss I mean, no?  No?  We must talk about that, later.  He passes out in a delirious fog of lust (Casillas again?), and they both leave with the medics, having just scored their own goals. 

5. Keep your eye on the ball, if you want to score.

Game restarts but this time the ladies have come to play.  They’re in an aggressive 2-3-5 formation, they’re out to score.  They quickly pass the ball forward, flowing towards your goal like a wave, tap, tap, tap, tap… you can barely keep up.  You slide in to tackle the winger, but she skips over you lightly and continues her run down the flank, leaving you on the grass with skid marks on your ass.  She plays the ball into the box and your defender heads it away over the crossbar.  Corner.  The lights go out, then come back on a few seconds later.  In front of you now is the all star team.  Yep, they switched players, all of them.  Where before you had Wangeci, the unassuming intern from accounts with a thick Nyeri accent, you now have Maryanne, the ’accounts assistant’ with a bosom to die, luscious locks down to her pert little ass, and an American accent (with faint traces of Nyeri).  Again you run to the ref crying foul, and again he walks away unmoved, checking his mpesa balance to confirm the cash is in.  They take the corner, Maryanne rubs her boobs against your defender’s back and he turns to her, inadvertently heading the ball into his own net.  He shoots, she scores.  The lights go out again, and when they come back on, Maryanne is gone and Wangeci is back, only now Wangeci has his number.

6. Substitutions will be made, often, with no warning. 

When the game restarts, you manage to steal the ball away from their midfield as they gossip about your number 7, the one with the very tight shorts on, who runs like a girl and squeals each time you touch his hair, the one you suspect is really playing for the ladies team.  You sprint down the field, heading straight for the centre, that way they cant shift the goal on you again.  As you huff and puff towards the goal, you notice the voluptuous goalkeeper standing in the corner with your star striker, having an intimate chat.  Incensed at not being taken seriously, you continue charging forward, ignoring the screams of your better placed, and more talented, team mates, this goal is yours.  At the edge of the box you chip the last defender and watch as the ball floats towards the goal mouth, dipping…  The goalkeeper looks up in shock at the unexpected attack.  Dipping…  Your other star striker, the one who spends most of his time wandering around aimlessly contemplating a new hair cut, lurches forward to try and poach it, but it flies just over his head, dipping…  It looks like its going in and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  Dipping…  And it’s in.  The crowd goes wild…  You are now a superstar.

7. Skip the bullshit and go straight for goal.  They won’t see you coming, and by the time they do, it will be too late.

Game tied at one all, the remaining players are forced to go to penalties, this after a boring extra time where all they do is walk from one end of the pitch to another, sipping on a clear liquid that looks like water, but isn’t.  Being that they’re all Africans, the penalty shoot out is nothing if not dramatic, if for no other reason than they’re all quite plastered.  After each player has taken a shot, and missed, the game is still tied at 1-1.   Being that they’re all drunk Africans, they then decide that they are tired and resort to taking body shots, last man standing wins, and thus loses.  Remember those defenders who looked like they’d eaten their children?  Turns out baby fat is an excellent stomach lining, soaks up alcohol like a sponge.

8. When all else fails, try tequila.  Or not.


There are days I worry for my sanity, and if you’re reading this then I worry for yours too.  

6.5.12

He's back! (aka the saga that refuses to die...)

“Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices, inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don’t patronize me
Don’t patronize me…”

Every so often someone writes a song that transcends damn near everything we’ve ever heard before.  Lyrics so honest you wonder how they got into your head while they were writing it.  A voice that delivers an emotion so strong its practically tangible, it’s a caress on the cheek, an embrace to your soul, a much needed slap across your face, waking you up to the feelings you’ve been trying to hide for so long.  Today’s song is exactly that.  “I cant make you love me” is the one of those songs I listen to and freeze, it takes me to a dark place that I’m both familiar with and immensely scared of. 

I first heard this song in 1998, back when I was in campus in the middle of what was my ‘first love’.  When I got the CD, George Michael’s Best of compilation (‘Ladies and Gentlemen’), I listened to it non-stop for months on end, and while this song in particular was love at first sight/hearing (the simplicity of it blew me away), it was not my favourite.  About six months later, my ‘love’ had tupad me like a used tissue, for his childhood sweetheart no less (it was quite a soap opera, as only campo drama can be…) and I was in the throes of my first heartbreak.  All of a sudden, the song took on new meaning, George was speaking to me, ‘strumming my soul with his fingers, singing my song with his words…’, to quote a woman much more talented than me.  In my innocent mind, my recently ended relationship was a classic case of a love that was doomed from the start, because ‘he never loved me’.  Ah, the sweet foolishness of youth, no?

“Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something that it won’t…”

Almost ten years later and a truly devastating ‘all grown up’ break-up later, this song was back on heavy rotation.  ‘Not again!’ I cried to myself, wrapping myself in the beautiful voice of George as I attempted to nurse myself back to sanity, but this time, being older and wiser, I threw in a good measure of alcohol as well, all the better to bring out the emotion (or dull it, depending).  Unfortunately, second time around, George’s magic wasn’t working, so I dumped the music and clung to the bottle.  I tell you, if I did not become a full blown alcoholic during those six months, it wasn’t because I didn’t try, I drank more crap in that period than I had drunk in all the years preceding it.  Fortunately for me, my losing streak continued and I failed at that too, that plus my guardian angel was working overtime, protecting me from myself.  I was in a daze, numb, not even my extensive collection of ‘pick yourself up and dust yourself off’ songs could get through the fog (actually one did, but I’ll write about it another day).  Eventually, as with all things life, that too came to pass, and George finally began to get through again.  But this time the song wasn’t one of youthful longing, it had become the song of a woman tired of hanging on to something that didn’t exist anymore.  It became a farewell.

“Here in the dark, in these final hours
I will lay down my heart, and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t, no you won’t
And I can’t make you love me
If you don’t…”

Now around the same time, Paco gave me the Boyz II Men album of covers (I forget what it’s called), and I stumbled across this very song.  ‘What’s this?’ I asked, confused, ‘These bastards have the nerve to cover George, my George?  Nkt!’  And with that I dismissed the album wholesale, seeing as how I despise covers, or at least I used to.  Then one night, a couple of months back, I’m working late as usual and listening to Capital, the request session between midnight and 1.00 am to be precise, and a random guy requests this song, no doubt nursing heartbreak of his own.  I get excited because I’m expecting to hear George, or at the very least the Boyz geniuses, who I still love despite my issues (those buggers sang the songs which those of us who were teens in the early 90’s had our first kisses to, and possibly more, you can’t help but have a soft spot, no?).  Instead the presenter plays a version by Will Downing and I’m wondering, ‘Eh?  Kwani how many guys have covered George?’  Very disturbed by this new revelation, and slightly idle as usual, I proceeded to google the song. 

I never learn, do I? 

On the off chance you glanced at the soundtrack section today, you may have noticed that there’s a second version of the song uploaded as well.  That’s the original.  Yes folks, turns out my man George is an impostor.  This time though, having gone through the D’angelo/Smokey debacle, I remained calm and composed.  And then I wept a little.  Kidding.  The song was originally released in 1991 and is one of Bonnie Raitt’s biggest hits, understandably, and has been covered by countless artists, from Prince to Adele to Kenny Rogers.  And it gets better, if you listen to the original, you’ll hear distinctive piano playing accompanying her raspy voice, distinctive to those of you who are/were fans of Sundowner.  The fellow playing is none other than Bruce Hornsby of ‘Mandolin Rain’ fame, or for the hip-hop heads amongst us, the chap who sang the song sampled in Tupac’s ‘Changes’, ‘The way it is’.  That 6 degrees of separation saga is no lie I tell you, but that too is a story for another day.  Another useless fact for you, Ms Raitt is quoted as saying that she struggles to sing this song live, because the emotion of the song is such that she’s forced to dig deep, too deep sometimes.  So you see, I didn’t imagine the ‘naisikia kwa roho’ feeling I got, and still get, there are many others like me.  I’m not crazy, is all I’m saying.

Why am I subjecting you to a music appreciation class?  Because George is back on rotation, courtesy of the mess with Disappearing Dude.  Only this time, he’s not doing the trick.  Problem is, this time I think I’m the one who was not feeling the love, not the other way around.  No, that’s not it.  Whatever love I may have felt, and I’m probably still feeling seeing as how I clearly have separation issues, it wasn’t enough.  I gave up on this man, not because I didn’t care about him, I simply cared about myself more.  I’ve always been the idiot who will keep fighting till there’s no fight left in me, and then I’ll try again one more time, just to be sure, because I believe that anything worth having is worth fighting for.  At least I did.  Until recently.  It’s a scary thing when you realise you’ve grown up, or grown away.

“Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right
Just give me till then, to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight…”

The man has reappeared, seemingly serious and intent on making up for past transgressions, transgressions I might add he seems to have no knowledge of.  In one of the stranger ironies of my life, he seems completely unaware of the fact that shit ended, and not in a particularly good way.  The way he’s carrying on, he simply went away for a couple of weeks and now he’s back to pick up where we left off.  Men, huh?  Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them!  Now I’m a believer in second chances and what not, but how am I supposed to handle a genius who doesn’t even know we’re on round two?  I have no idea what to do, so I’m adopting my tried and tested method of, ‘Freeze!  Don’t move a muscle, maybe he won’t see you…’, this as the lion is staring at me, licking its paws in anticipation, about to pounce on my juicy and conveniently immobile ass.  If you happen to find this and related posts gone one day, in my attempt to remove traces of my emotional infidelity (you’re all my clandes and if I go down I’m taking you with me, I’m just saying…), know that I’ve been bitten.  Again.  Until then however, I shall continue to hold my ‘statue’, in the delusional hope that bloody simba is blind…

1.5.12

...like Wonder Woman (aka sex(ist) therapy part 2...)

“She take my money, when I’m in need
Yea she’s a triflin’ friend indeed
Oh she’s a gold digger, way over town
That digs on me…”

Stop looking at me like that, those are the ever brilliant Kanye West’s words, he that would have featured here much sooner if I wasn’t too lazy to rip the bloody CD’s.  Today’s track was originally the surprisingly profound ‘Wouldn’t get far’ by The Game featuring Mr West, I song that I would love to quote at length, but I don’t have the balls to put up its lyrics.  If you feel so inclined, listen closely at 2:40 on this track, the lines starting ‘the things niggaz do when…’  That is the point to all this nonsense I’ve written today, and from whence the title of this post was derived.  But as with all best laid plans, things went awry when I stumbled across ‘Gold Digger’ yesterday, it just fits so much better, and you’re about to figure out why.

Given those opening lines, do I still need to give a disclaimer?  Okay then, for the benefit of any newbies amongst us (not likely, but who knows…), we’re headed into the sewer today, take off all valuables and such like, fragile people exit now, the language in this one might get a bit…hairy. 

Every so often I’ll tell you about my local, not to show you what a lush I am (I’m not.  Really, I’m not…), but because that’s where I end up listening to all manner of idiots bitch to me about all manner of rubbish, usually because I’m the only female in the bar they aren’t trying to shag.  Now every so often, one of the fellas will start bitching about some random girl he met (read shagged) who keeps hitting him up for cash, airtime, cab fare, salon money, random trips to the coast, fees for her relatives, and on and on…  And then at one point in the bitching session, said unhappy bastard turns to me and asks, “Why do you women always want money from us?”, and then the other three bastards turn to me and chime, “Lakini why?”  I’m sitting there, odds are at that point slightly tipsy, staring at these four men and thinking, ‘When did I become the representative for all Kenyan women?’, but I don’t bother asking that.  Instead I ask, “Why did you give her money the first time she asked?”

Today I’m going to give you a couple of stories, stories of men who I worry have IQ’s that are slightly suspect, slightly, and this in an attempt to illustrate the unending foolishness all around us, because you know how much I love foolishness.  Or not. 

First up, the story of a friend of a friend of mine who is currently ‘married’ to a woman who is, from the way his boys tell it, not a very good woman.  Now when she met this man, he was newly promoted and single, therefore flush with disposable income and looking to make up for lost time by shagging any woman who would have him, now that he was standing a little taller and looking a little more shiny and shit in his (not quite) new Golf.  She took a quick look at him and figured, ‘why not?’, and the next thing he knew she had his number.  Expensive dinner here and drinks there, a loose shopping spree in Uchumi for ‘breakfast stuff’ for the morning after the night before, the man was living in the Southern outskirts of the city and he was taking her home to the (far) Eastern outskirts every night, this so he could get laid, very well laid I assume if you factor in Nairobi traffic and fuel prices.  What?  That’s a long way to go for crap sex, we have to give the man some credit and assume it was good sex, no?  I’m just saying…  Less than four months after they began ‘dating’ she’s pregnant and the next thing he knows she’s in his house.  Two years later, the man is crying into his beer, moaning about this woman who expects him to pay all the bills, she practically takes his entire pay check each month.  He’s frustrated because she’s happy to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour without contributing anything to the family pot.  He wants to know how to change this situation.  I want to slap him.  You meet a woman who likes your wallet as much as, if not more than, you and then you turn around and complain that she’s bleeding you dry?  Really?

Different idiot, similar scenario.  Moving on up, newly minted six digit income, decides to go get himself a sweet young thing, still in college to boot, to go with his recently acquired eligible bachelor status.  Now seeing as how she’s still a student, he’s paying for everything, no?  Not a problem, he’s only too happy to throw his cash around, he’s the man!  Check out the hot chick on his arm, man!  Once in a while there would be minor rumblings about the cost of maintaining this woman, but said rumblings were mainly used to show the rest of us just how much cash the man had.  ‘Can you believe she wants to go to Mombasa, again?’ he asks, stroking his big fat…ego, ‘It’s not a problem, I can take her, it’s just…’  A hungry woman and a flash bastard, match made in heaven, right?  Problem is, she has since graduated, got a good job with a newly minted six digit income, and he’s still paying for everything.  Everything?  Every-thang!  They got married last year, and he’s still bitching about the money, all while occasionally stroking his big fat…say it with me…ego.  Him I already slapped, years ago.  Don’t worry, it was with a book, I didn’t break anything, although I think I smudged the lovely book’s cover.  And the slap didn’t help.  Clearly.

Should I continue?

An acquaintance from the bar (i.e. random idiot I run into every so often), having recently broken up with his mama, proceeded to go on a shag fest, literally, I lost track of the different girls parading in and out of his life, bed, car (don’t ask).  One day several months later, he realised that the hole he kept trying to fill with random sex was only getting bigger, so he decided to find a serious mama and settle down.  He meets a woman who could possibly be ‘the one’, seeing as how he didn’t meet her in a bar at 2.00 am, but one month later he’s already complaining about how she’s too pushy, she’s trying to take over his life, blah blah blah…  He’s moaning about how he’s spending too much money with this woman, because she’s a serious woman and she deserves to be spoilt rotten, no?  No.  Turns out that in his brilliance he may have told the woman that he’s more successful (read richer) than he actually is.  There he is, living the champagne lifestyle on a beer budget, struggling like a nonsense, but he’s still going, he’s the man!  The reason he keeps going?  This woman has shagged him like a superstar, the way he tells it, literally, role play, handcuffs and shit.  The man is completely p… whipped.  (I know, a mouth this filthy and that’s the one word I have issues with?  Go figure!)  Some idiots aren’t even worth the slap.

I have more stories, many more.  Stories of men doing stupid shit, like pretending to be big time playas to get laid, forgetting that such a big lie will eventually catch up with them; or shagging virtual strangers bila condoms, in this day and age, and then acting surprised when a little Jimmy surfaces soon thereafter; or flashing the cash around to make up for what must surely be a lack of something else, or simply good old-fashioned laziness, who knows?  The thing that bothers me about this trend of men using money to get laid is this, if you meet a woman and the first thing you do is show her your fat wallet, what do you think is going to happen thereafter?  If you want to keep getting laid, you have to keep paying, yes?  On the up side though, with these women using what’s between their legs to get a man, more accurately to get his money, they don’t get to complain when he goes out and buys a newer model, because they’re the geniuses who turned it into a commercial transaction to begin with.  All’s fair in sex and money.  If you get tired of your purchase, all you have to do is go out and buy another one, right?

I read an article last weekend, in the March issue of GQ (Seeking Arrangement), about a dating site for sugar daddies.  You heard me, sugar daddies, men with cash to spend, looking for young women (referred to as sugar babies) interested in being their recreational partners, for a fee.  I’m not shitting you, these men get onto this site and state what they’re looking for and how much they’re willing to pay for it.  While sex is never mentioned explicitly, because that would be prostitution and therefore illegal, it’s implied in the ‘arrangements‘ they describe, they’re looking for a ‘girlfriend experience’.  They stick their annual income right up at the top, then they describe their appearance and such like, then they state their offer, as in how much they are willing to pay a woman for her ‘time’.  Reading this I assumed that the sugar babies would be working girls, but apparently that’s not the case, these girls are regular, albeit hot, girls either looking to make a bit of extra cash, for a myriad of reasons, or perhaps hoping for a ‘pretty woman’ type happy ending, who knows?  Point is, we always talk about how money plays an important role in dating, and sex, but here is a genius who went one step further and allowed people to state it up front: I give you x number dollars and you give me x number hours a month, and vice versa.  Brilliant, or deviant?  You decide. 

From what I’ve seen in this special city of ours, dating these days is exactly the same, a cash transaction.  A man steps up to you assuming that you expect him to spend his money on you, and in return he expects you to shag him, the more he spends, the more, or better, sex he demands.  Go out with a man more than three times and don’t give it up, you’re promptly branded a prick tease.  The man takes you out on Saturday night and you can rest assured that he’ll be expecting a blow job on Sunday morning.  Go out of town with the man and you will be expected to bend over before you even unpack.  And the worst part is, women seem to have accepted this state of affairs.  They’re out there selling their sex to the highest bidder because they figure, why give it out for free when they can make a little money out of it?  I guess if it’s a ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ scenario, then what business do I have getting worked up about it, live and let live and what not, no?  No.  Thing is, it’s now the default assumption is that we’re all ‘that woman’ who’s selling her p… let’s call it ‘wares’.  That’s just plain unacceptable.  Gentlemen, some of us do not want your money.  Really.  I’m not saying we don’t want you to spend money on us, all women love it when you spoil them rotten, in our deluded heads its part of the courting process.  Yes, you must woo us, but please don’t take that to mean throwing money, expensive gifts and such like material things at us, that’s not courting, that’s a purchase, hire-purchase to be precise. 

Ah screw this!  I’m done speaking for all of womankind, I’m going to speak for myself from now on.  I don’t know what some of my kind are thinking when they ask you for 5k to go get their hair done, every week.  I don’t know what they’re thinking when they call you and ask you to ‘loan’ them money for rent, every month.  I don’t know what on earth possesses them to demand an Easter holiday in Malindi, just to let you hit it, that one time.  I don’t bloody know, so stop asking me why.  Bottom line is, if you choose to go out and buy ‘wares’, then don’t turn around and come crying to me, ati all the supplier wants is your money.  Why do you think she gave you said ‘wares’, fucking charity?  

“Now I ain’t sayin’ she a gold digger
But she ain’t messin’ with no broke niggaz..."